Back by Popular Demand
by melanie
Summary: Mulder's back. It's funny. I hope. R&R, tell me how I did.


Author: melanie 

Feedback: Please! I hope you all enjoy this, and if you do, review it! Even if you don't, review it! It's what we writers live for. :-)

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Mulder and Scully or anyone that you recognize. And I don't have any money anyway, so don't sue!

Spoilers: Requiem and the movie, but hey, it really doesn't matter. I think it's funny whether you've seen them or not.

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It was a fairly normal Thursday afternoon when Scully rushed into A.D. Skinner's office.

"Sir! I just had an extremely strong premonition that you've found Mulder! What's the latest news?" Skinner looked guiltily around.

"Umm, I don't know what you're talking about, Agent Scully."

"Mulder! Abducted by aliens! Have you found him?" 

"No. I still don't know what you're talking about." Scully narrowed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir, but are you withholding information?" Skinner scribbled at a piece of paper, then handed it to her. It read 'Area 51'. Scully looked extremely confused. Couldn't he at least have given her directions if he was going to tell her to go to secret government facilities?

"Sir?"

"You are out of line, Agent! Get out of my sight!"

"Geez," she muttered as she exited. What was up with him? Glancing back into his office, she saw the Cigarette Smoking Man step out of the shadows. Darn it, wasn't Krychek supposed to have killed him? Well, if you want something done well, do it yourself, she thought. So she turned around and shot her arch-nemesis, then fled from the building. 

****************

Scully showed up at the Lone Gunmen's office.

"Hey! Guys! I need your help!" Frohike peeked out of the door.

"What do you want this time?" 

"I need you to help me find Mulder."

"Not again!" He started to shut the door, but Scully managed to get her foot in it. 

"Ouch!" She yelped. "Come on, it was a really strong premonition this time!"

"How strong?"

"Umm...well, I was investigating a really promising faith healer when I had a vision of Mulder calling my name. Not that I could hear him, but that's what I got from reading his lips." Her brow furrowed. "You don't think he could have been say 'Diana', not 'Dana', do you?"

"You stopped investigating something to do with religion?" Frohike looked impressed. "It must have been strong. Fine, fine. We'll run a check on the hospitals." He let her in.

"He's never called me Dana," she said, looking perturbed. "I bet that hussy Diana Fowley never died! I bet it was all a trick!" Suddenly she looked down at her foot. 

"I think you broke my ankle with that stupid door." The Gunmen ignored her, though, they had paused the movie the had been watching and were already hacking into the hospital computers.

"Hey!" exclaimed Langly, "Didn't the Cancer Man character die in Requiem?"

"It's doubtful he survived the fall," mused Byers, "but we never actually saw him die, so it's possible he's still alive. Why?"

"He's in the ICU at Bethesda naval hospital right now with a bullet wound in the chest!"

"What!?" Scully limped over, staring at the screen. "I shot to kill!"

"You did what?" Three heads swivelled around to look at her.

"He was in Skinner's office today and I decided I'd had enough, so I shot him. Oh, and Skinner gave me this note. What do you think?" She handed it to Frohike.

"You know you can't do things like that, Scully," Byers explained patiently. "How many times has Mr. Carter told you, people like Cancer Man are vital to the plot line, and if we kill them, the show will degenerate into a trashy soap opera about a love triangle between you, Mulder, and Diana Fowley-"

"I knew she wasn't dead!" Scully crowed triumphantly.

"Hey! What about me?" Asked Frohike indignantly. Byers ignored them and continued.

"Or else you and Doggett will have to get together and Lord knows that will kill the ratings-"

"Geez," Scully said, "don't talk like that. I just ate."

"So you have to go over there and make sure he lives." Byers finished.

"What!? No. Uh-uh. No way."

"Do you ever want to find out what species your baby is?"

"Well, I am beginning to wonder..."

"Good. Then go use your amazing doctoring skills to make sure he doesn't die."

"But-"

"Just go!" Scully glared at Byers and stormed out.

"You better have found Mulder when I come back, or I'm gonna kick your asses!" She shouted over her shoulder. Frohike sighed.

"Well, the note's crap. Doesn't even give directions to the place. Ok, guys, let's find him before she can screw things up again."

"Can't we finish the movie first?" Langly whined.

"No! Well... we were at a good part, weren't we? Ok, fine, but then we get right to finding Mulder."

*****************

Scully finished in the ICU about one hour later, reluctantly using her expertise to help save the Cancer Man's life.

"Ok, fine, he'll live now." She fumed to herself as the changed out of her scrubs and washed the blood spatters off her face and neck. "I still can't believe they made me do that. I haven't operated on a living patient in years, and that was hard!" She stormed down the hallway towards her car until she saw a familiar brown-haired head resting on a pillow in a room she was passing.

"Mulder!?" The head turned, and she saw that it wasn't him. "Oops, sorry. Wrong guy." She hurriedly left the room and continued down the hall until she heard a voice calling her name.

"Scully! Scully! DANA!!!" She whipped around to see Mulder waving frantically from his doorway.

"Mulder!" She was sure it was him this time. She rushed towards him, elated that one of her premonitions had finally been correct. "How did you get back?"

"Well, the aliens were doing all sorts of tests on me up in the ship. It was pretty fun, actually, getting to see all of it from a first hand perspective." She narrowed her eyes suddenly.

"Why are you so tan if you've been up in the ship?" 

"Oh, you know the deal, I was up there, but David Duchovny, my Hollywood counterpart, was enjoying his vacation on the beaches of Malibu, and the makeup artists forgot that a guy's melanin level would probably go down, not up, after several months in a spaceship."

"Of course! I completely forgot how stupid the makeup artists can be. They've been trying to have me look tired and stressed out on the show, so they haven't had me wear any makeup all season. It's a nice break, really. And they gave me a cool new hairstyle to make up for it. But on with the story. How'd you get off the ship?"

"Well, Mr. Carter gave them a call and told them to give me back. So they did."

"Just like that? You mean, he could have done that all along and he just kept me waiting down here, and didn't even let me know you were ok?"

"Oh, come on, Scully, you knew as well as anyone that David was contracted to make 11 appearances this season, so you should have known I'd be back around now."

"Yeah, but there were rumors about David just quitting all out, and...oh, Mulder, I've missed you so much!"

"Shh, it's ok. Here, let me finish my story. You see, Mr. Carter explained it to me. He said I'd been brought back 'by popular demand', which means that the writers had no good ideas for where the show was going, so they bought time by taking away the viewers' favorite character and then bringing him back, to hopefully end up with an overall increase in ratings."

"That makes sense, I guess...hey, how do I know you're the real Mulder?" She suddenly looked very suspicious and Mulder thought fast.

"Umm, remember the movie? You were going to be assigned to Salt Lake City so you resigned but then I told you that you couldn't do that because I needed you and then somehow we ended up almost kissing in the hallway, but then you were stung by a bee and shipped to Antarctica and I had to go get you and a big spaceship flew over us, but I guess you didn't see that, they never have you see the spaceships, and God knows how we got out of there cause the bulldozer thing that I came in was out of gas, but when we did they reopened the X-Files?" 

Mulder gasped for breath after his impressive performance of not breathing throughout the entire run-on sentence, and Scully beamed at him. 

"It is you! I remember that thing in the hallway, we were so close... I always wondered why they didn't have us get together after that." Mulder shrugged.

"It was another rating thing. But you're not the only one who feels that way, you should check out the fanfiction sites sometime. That's probably one of the favorite scenes out of the entire seven years." They sat silent for a minute.

"Well," Scully finally said, "let's get out of here. Take that ridiculous tube thing out of your nose, Mulder, you know you'll get to use it again next time you're scripted to be in the hospital. It won't be long, knowing you." Mulder grinned.

"Hey Scully?" 

"Yes, Mulder?"

"Do you think we finally get to hook up now?"

"I certainly hope so, considering the baby's due in a few months."

"The what?"

"What, didn't Mr. Carter tell you? I'm pregnant!"

"Hey! Wow! You're gonna have a baby!" Mulder paused. "Wait, were you told about that beforehand?"

"Noooo, I just found out when I was at the hospital after you got abducted."

"Cause I wasn't told about this either. Usually at least one of gets informed about major plot developments like this ahead of time..."

"What are you saying, Mulder?"

"Well, since you supposedly have no ova, which by the way don't grow back-"

"They don't?"

"No, what kind of a medical school did you go to? Anyway, between the fact that you have no ova and we never had sex- we never did have sex, right?"

"Umm, not that I know of but you know how the writers are about things like that."

"Uh-huh...well, technically, if there's no sperm and no egg, you shouldn't have been able to get pregnant." They looked at each other for a minute with the classic looks of dawning realization on their faces.

"It's an X-file!" They shouted in unison, overjoyed. Then they walked out of the hospital room, hand in hand.

"Hey, Scully?"

"Yes, Mulder?"

"When are they gonna have you start wearing the belly? Aren't you supposed to be getting fat by now?"

"Yeah, but they're still having me wear those green ribbed turtlenecks. I keep telling them that I should be wearing professional FBI stuff and getting big in the tummy area, but I guess the viewers like skinny-Scullly better." She sighed. "It's a rating thing."

**************

The End

Please review and tell me if you liked this. Yes, I know, it wasn't much for plot, but if it made you laugh, or even if it didn't, let me know! Thank you!


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